Pakistan has announced three days of national mourning after a Christian government minister who decried Islamic blasphemy laws was gunned down.
Police investigators say they are on the trail of the suspected extremists who killed minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti outside his mother's house in Islamabad, in a brazen attack that has drawn international outrage.
Mr Bhatti, who left a chilling video prophecy of his assassination, had vowed to fight to the death in defence of Pakistan's persecuted minorities.
One police official said on condition of anonymity that investigators are looking into the security team assigned to Mr Bhatti, who became the second high-profile victim among opponents of the blasphemy law.
Two months ago, Punjab province governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by one of his own police bodyguards, who cited the politician's opposition to the draconian statute as justification for killing the "apostate".
Despite official condemnation of the January killing, Mr Taseer's killer continues to be feted a hero by Islamist hardliners and the government says it has no plans to revise the law.
However, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani issued tough words as he ordered flags to be flown at half-mast and says security will be stepped up after Mr Bhatti's slaying.
"Anti-state elements are making their last-ditch efforts by targeting important personalities in the country in order to fulfill their evil designs," he told his interior minister, Rehman Malik, according to a statement.
The extremist threat was underlined on Thursday when a car suicide bombing and an ambush by militants targeting police in north-western Pakistan killed 15 people including nine policemen.
But Mr Gilani says the "government through fool-proof arrangements would safeguard the lives and properties of all citizens of the country, particularly to make sure they could play their role in the development of the country".
The prime minister's comments came as a video - said to have been recorded in December - spread online in which Mr Bhatti said he was being hunted by the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
Extremists wanted to kill him because of his opposition to the blasphemy law and to Sharia legislation, and because of his work for "the oppressed and marginalised", the Catholic politician said sombrely into the camera.
In the video, posted online by the European group First Step Forum, which promotes interfaith dialogue, Mr Bhatti said: "I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us".
"I'm ready to die for a cause. I'm living for my community and suffering people, and I will die to defend their rights," he said.
Mr Bhatti's assassination rekindled international fears about extremist violence in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation that is a crucial if fractious ally in the US-led war in Afghanistan.
US president Barack Obama said he was saddened by the "horrific" assassination.
"Those who committed this crime should be brought to justice, and those who share Mr Bhatti's vision of tolerance and religious freedom must be able to live free from fear," he said.
Up to four assailants sprayed a hail of bullets at Mr Bhatti's car in broad daylight on Wednesday. Police said a letter was found at the scene, purportedly from supporters of Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, claiming responsibility.
"Bhatti, a Christian, was in charge of a committee set up to amend the law against blasphemy," police quoted the letter as saying.
"This is his fate. We will not spare anybody involved in acts of blasphemy."
Senior police official Muhammad Ishaq Warraich cautioned on Thursday that the letter might "be an attempt to divert our investigations".
His colleague Bani Amin says police are confident of a breakthrough.
"The investigators were busy all night. We hope to solve this case soon," Mr Amin said.
One line of inquiry appeared to be Mr Bhatti's security detail, which was not with the minister at the time of the morning attack.
Mr Malik said it had been Mr Bhatti's decision to visit his mother without guards so as to keep the location secret. But the interior minister called the decision "wrong".
Uproar over the blasphemy law, which carries the death penalty, flared both in Pakistan and abroad after a Christian mother of five was sentenced to hang last year for making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.
Critics say the law is often used to settle personal or business scores.
* taken from ABC News; read it again here
Showing posts with label article. Show all posts
Showing posts with label article. Show all posts
3.04.2011
2.14.2011
He is opposed to earning
* I know it's already the middle of February, but I wanted to share this article that has it's focus on "the new year". I think it's definitely still applicable. On another note, Happy Valentine's Day to everybody!
The Pilgrim's Progress
Three wishes and ways for moving forward in the new year
The pilgrim is meant to make progress. This is a great joy for many of us. But perhaps it has to be contended for in our day. In Bunyan's tale, our protagonist puts miles between himself and the City of Destruction on his journey heavenward. But in real life one sees uncertainty as to how much progress can be made on this side of the Jordan's icy flow.
C. S. Lewis, critiquing his book The Pilgrim's Regress 10 years later, said it suffered from "needless obscurity." (He was right.) Here are three simple wishes for your new year:
Pray to have friends (at least one) who have more faith than you do. It is much easier to understand the Scriptures when you have a living, breathing, walking example beside you. It helps hermeneutics like nothing else I know, putting sinews on spiritual words, coalescing a page of instruction in a seamless incarnation you can imitate. Paul was bullish on imitation (Philippians 3:17; 4:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:9). Faith-filled friends give a godly infection.
Specify that it be a friend who knows how to do spiritual warfare, like how to employ the weaponry of truth and promises to argue himself from a spirit of heaviness to a place of joy (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). He will have details and experiences, not vague generalities.
God "has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13)--where all things are possible. Your friend will keep you honest. He will remind you of how to press into that ocean of possibilities, through concerted prayer, and fasting, when necessary. Start asking today. Good traveling companions are the glorious ones who will be your delight (Psalm 16:3). They will keep you established (Romans 1:11-12) and walking within the guardrails of grace.
The prophet Isaiah (who never read Bunyan) describes the time of the Messiah thus: "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray" (35:8).
So my next wish for you is to get rid of everything doubtful in your life this year, since the unclean may not pass by that highway. "Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God" (2 Corinthians 7:1). "If anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21).
Some will balk at your resolution, or your language. Get used to that and get serious with God by fleeing from defiling entanglements that nibble away at the life of the Spirit in you. The one whose heart is set on pilgrimage "shuts his eyes from looking on evil" (Isaiah 33:15). The mature do not confuse this resolve with the false asceticism Paul denounces in his letter to Galatia. It is a self-centered, Christ-independent technique. God is not opposed to determination; He is opposed to earning. The early church saw salvations by the thousands as normal (Acts 5:14). We see no hint that they dissipated their spiritual power on preoccupations that divide the heart.
My third wish for you is mastery of the tongue. The Lord liked that advice so much He put it in both His Old and New Testaments: "Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit" (1 Peter 3:10; Psalm 34:12-13). You want to love life in 2011, don't you? You want those 365 days to be "good days"? Here is the short version for readers too busy to bother with wishes No. 1 and 2: Speak slowly, put on a filter, let out no lie.
The year 2011 is a woman on the birthing stool, and we don't know what's in there yet: weal or woe; the sun rising or the sun setting on our nation; the beginning of the end times, or the end times in earnest. In any case, "a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you" (Psalm 91:7). You will pick your way among the dead and make it home.
-- Andree Seu
The Pilgrim's Progress
Three wishes and ways for moving forward in the new year
The pilgrim is meant to make progress. This is a great joy for many of us. But perhaps it has to be contended for in our day. In Bunyan's tale, our protagonist puts miles between himself and the City of Destruction on his journey heavenward. But in real life one sees uncertainty as to how much progress can be made on this side of the Jordan's icy flow.
C. S. Lewis, critiquing his book The Pilgrim's Regress 10 years later, said it suffered from "needless obscurity." (He was right.) Here are three simple wishes for your new year:
Pray to have friends (at least one) who have more faith than you do. It is much easier to understand the Scriptures when you have a living, breathing, walking example beside you. It helps hermeneutics like nothing else I know, putting sinews on spiritual words, coalescing a page of instruction in a seamless incarnation you can imitate. Paul was bullish on imitation (Philippians 3:17; 4:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:9). Faith-filled friends give a godly infection.
Specify that it be a friend who knows how to do spiritual warfare, like how to employ the weaponry of truth and promises to argue himself from a spirit of heaviness to a place of joy (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). He will have details and experiences, not vague generalities.
God "has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13)--where all things are possible. Your friend will keep you honest. He will remind you of how to press into that ocean of possibilities, through concerted prayer, and fasting, when necessary. Start asking today. Good traveling companions are the glorious ones who will be your delight (Psalm 16:3). They will keep you established (Romans 1:11-12) and walking within the guardrails of grace.
The prophet Isaiah (who never read Bunyan) describes the time of the Messiah thus: "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray" (35:8).
So my next wish for you is to get rid of everything doubtful in your life this year, since the unclean may not pass by that highway. "Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God" (2 Corinthians 7:1). "If anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21).
Some will balk at your resolution, or your language. Get used to that and get serious with God by fleeing from defiling entanglements that nibble away at the life of the Spirit in you. The one whose heart is set on pilgrimage "shuts his eyes from looking on evil" (Isaiah 33:15). The mature do not confuse this resolve with the false asceticism Paul denounces in his letter to Galatia. It is a self-centered, Christ-independent technique. God is not opposed to determination; He is opposed to earning. The early church saw salvations by the thousands as normal (Acts 5:14). We see no hint that they dissipated their spiritual power on preoccupations that divide the heart.
My third wish for you is mastery of the tongue. The Lord liked that advice so much He put it in both His Old and New Testaments: "Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit" (1 Peter 3:10; Psalm 34:12-13). You want to love life in 2011, don't you? You want those 365 days to be "good days"? Here is the short version for readers too busy to bother with wishes No. 1 and 2: Speak slowly, put on a filter, let out no lie.
The year 2011 is a woman on the birthing stool, and we don't know what's in there yet: weal or woe; the sun rising or the sun setting on our nation; the beginning of the end times, or the end times in earnest. In any case, "a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you" (Psalm 91:7). You will pick your way among the dead and make it home.
-- Andree Seu
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